manus-dispatch

manus-dispatch

Dispatch long-running research tasks to the Manus AI agent platform from Claude Code via slash command. Manus does the heavy autonomous research; Claude orchestrates and synthesizes the result back into your session.

Slash commands

• /manus-dispatch <query> — dispatch a research task. Returns immediately with a task id; no background polling.
• /manus-dispatch:manus-status [task_id] — pull status (and result if completed) for one task, or for every still-running task if no id is given.
• /manus-dispatch:cancel <task_id> — best-effort stop.

The plugin also ships scripts/manus-client.sh, which you can call directly outside Claude Code: manus-client.sh create|status|result|cancel.

Auto-notify on completed tasks

Two hooks point at the same script hooks/notify-completed.sh:

• SessionStart — catches tasks that completed while Claude Code was closed. Fires once when you open a new session.
• Stop — catches tasks that complete mid-conversation. Fires after every Claude response.

Both walk ~/.config/manus-dispatch/state/, call manus-client.sh result on any task that hasn't been surfaced yet, and emit additionalContext:

## Manus tasks

Completed since last session:
• <task title> → <obsidian note path>
• <task title> (task <id>)

Still running: N task(s). Run /manus-dispatch:manus-status for details.

Cost: zero extra Claude turns (hooks run local bash, not model invocations). Each surfaced task is marked notified_at so subsequent fires are silent until something new completes. Stop hook bails in a fork+jq+ls when nothing's dispatched. Cross-platform — pure bash, no scheduler, no public endpoint.

Caveat: per Claude Code hook semantics, additionalContext is advisory — Claude is free to ignore it. In practice the agent reads it as session context. Do not rely on it for hard enforcement.

Why

Manus runs autonomous research tasks (browse, read, synthesize, write) that take minutes. Claude Code is a good driver for orchestrating them and a poor host for blocking on them. This plugin keeps Claude responsive: dispatch, get a task id, do other work, pull the result later.

Cost model

Manus is credit-based (~$0.005/credit). A research task typically burns 500–900 credits ($2.50–$4.50). The plugin only fires on explicit slash command invocation — there is no auto-dispatch.

Auth is API-key only in this plugin; Manus also supports OAuth2 in v2, but for a personal Claude Code plugin the key is simpler. See https://open.manus.ai/docs/v2/oauth if you need scoped tokens.

Setup

1. Install via the nhangen-tools marketplace:

   claude plugin marketplace add nhangen/claude-plugins
   claude plugin install manus-dispatch@nhangen-tools
   

2. Get an API key from https://open.manus.ai/docs/v2/authentication.
3. Create config:

   mkdir -p ~/.config/manus-dispatch
   cp <plugin>/config/manus.example.toml ~/.config/manus-dispatch/config.toml
   $EDITOR ~/.config/manus-dispatch/config.toml
   

4. Either set api_key directly, set api_key_cmd to a keychain helper, or export MANUS_API_KEY in your shell — env wins.

Obsidian filing (optional)

Set obsidian_enabled = true in ~/.config/manus-dispatch/config.toml. Vault path is read from the nhangen/obsidian plugin's local config (~/.claude/plugins/cache/nhangen/obsidian/<latest>/obsidian.local.md, vault_path: frontmatter) — no hardcoded path in this plugin.

On success

When cmd_result fetches a completed task:

1. A research note is written to <vault>/Projects/Research/manus/<YYYY-MM-DD>-<slug>.md with frontmatter.

2. Today's daily note at <vault>/Daily/<YYYY-MM-DD>.md gets an entry under ## Research (section created if absent; daily file created with date:/tags:[daily] frontmatter if absent):

   - [<title>](../Projects/Research/manus/<date>-<slug>.md) — task `<id>` — [Manus](<url>) <!-- manus:<id> -->
     <first-200-chars of result, headings/code stripped>
   

   Entries are deduped by the <!-- manus:<id> --> marker.

On failure

When agent_status == "error", the plugin writes one line to <vault>/CEO/inbox.md:

- [ ] Manus task `<id>` (<title>) failed: <reason> — [Manus](<url>)

Per ceo-automated-writers-are-playbooks, this writer requires a manus-dispatch-failures entry in the vault's CEO/registry.json. Without it the inbox write is skipped (diagnostic on stderr) and the failure is still tracked on the per-task state file. See docs/playbooks/manus-dispatch-failures.md for the registry JSON to copy into claude-ceo.

Idempotency: one inbox line per task ever (gated by .failure_reported_at on the state file). Re-fetches are no-ops.

Failure modes